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So bye bye petrol/diesel cars by 2040 with outright ban coming into force.

It's 23 years away, it'll never happen. It's just a meme to make it seem like we're 'doing' something about the hot topic of emissions and global warming.

Chances are we'll mostly have moved away from 'fuelled' cars anyway.

Exactly this, it's a 'safe' target. It's most likely that the majority of new car sales by then will be electric or hybrid anyway. Then there's great progress on autonomous vehicles also, so it's likely most of us won't need to drive in future.

We'll be solving one energy problem and causing another. With current batteries taking hours to charge, its not really feasible to sit at a motorway service station or garage forecourt for 6+ hours whilst it charges. Not to mention, that Lithium Ion batteries are notoriously difficult to manufacture at the moment...

Current batteries in some older electric cars yes, but with the rate of technology at the moment rapid charging isn't that far away nor are higher capacity/more efficient batteries. There's been a fantastic amount of progress recently on electric vehicles, with the likes of Tesla pushing the boundaries. Even the 'mainstream' manufacturers are also following suit, which will only accelerate the development further:

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Oil will always be needed in some shape or form. IF petrol/diesel cars start getting phased out (bear in mind, that only when it will START to happen, with a lot of cars having a lifetime of 20 years at least), something else will need fuel. Who's to say that the power demands won't be so big because of the massive increase in electric cars, that we have to start relying on massive generator stations, driven by diesel generators. It would arguably be a more efficient way of using fossil fuels to generate energy for cars..

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I live in a very congested city and this will not make the intended change. The issue is that we are over EU set pollution limits, and we have to be "seen" to be making attempts to rectify this or we are fined.

Efficiency is not the issue, well not here in Reading. We have an award winning local bus company and yet I can walk into town quicker than the bus, a 3 mile walk because the public transport hits bottle necks where a bus lane is not feasible. We need proper car share incentives, real park and ride schemes, park and cycle, not just park and ride - that work and don't have an empty bus going back and forth all day because of timetables. Secure bike storage along with safe cycle routes that don't share with a bus! The technology of vehicles as they stand now is excellent, the pollution levels low because manufacturers are striving to the consumer who wishes to pay as little road fund licence as possible, yet these "efficient" cars as single occupancy vehicles if you sit in a a pub and watch the world go by.

There has been some reporting around the money going to consultancy schemes to ask people how the infrastructure can change, every council already knows this in reality, they know the bottle necks, the rat routes. Let them spend the money on more intelligent traffic lights that don't have a queue when the cross roads in other directions are empty. There is a 4way junction near me I walk through every day on the way to work, passing a line of emissions travelling north-south/south-north, yet some clever spod decided that traffic east-west is more important and changed the phasing. Why is this not camera driven automatic phasing I'll never know - the cameras are there if you jump the lights ....... :soapbox:

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There has been some reporting around the money going to consultancy schemes to ask people how the infrastructure can change, every council already knows this in reality, they know the bottle necks, the rat routes. Let them spend the money on more intelligent traffic lights that don't have a queue when the cross roads in other directions are empty. There is a 4way junction near me I walk through every day on the way to work, passing a line of emissions travelling north-south/south-north, yet some clever spod decided that traffic east-west is more important and changed the phasing. Why is this not camera driven automatic phasing I'll never know - the cameras are there if you jump the lights ....... :soapbox:

I think I might commute the 1 mile tomorrow in my 6.75ltr motor car

You'd be surprised at the knowledge of some of councils traffic teams, granted they'll be aware of some of the hotspots but they generally lack the manpower to model the junction and identify how to improve it, hence the need to outsource to consultancies.

Most modern traffic signals are intelligent in some shape or form using induction loops under the road surface, that can adjust the signal staging program depending on the location that traffic is present at. Traffic signals can also be linked, so if there are multiple lights on a stretch of road they can be linked to allow a column of traffic to flow along the road. Unfortunately it is expensive (MOVA/SCOOT are examples) that can cost tens of thousands to implement which councils would rather not spend unless they have to. With regard to the camera, it's a different technology at work there which has a different role to monitoring the traffic flows.

Technology in cities is improving and I reckon the costs will reduce using an IoT approach, not sure when it'll happen though.

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A lot of people saying 22 years is a long time. Well my motorbike is 14 years old a brand new motorbikes are not that different.

If the are serious about this they will need to start pushing hard on the tech now. Think about freight logistics, lorries and trucks, work vans, taxis, all these vehicles working all day long, simply isn't even come close to feasible on batteries right now. 22 years isn't that long in my opinion to make it work for thing like that and also be as affordable as internal combustion. Also in 22 years time diesel and petrol engines will have themselves become more efficient.

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Hmmmmm I think by 2040 I'll probably have one of those electric car doohickey things, probably the burgundy one that tops out at 5mph as I'll be knocking on 70 by then and I'm already falling to bits.

I can't wait to get one but my main life goal is to get a tartan trolley basket doofer, I don't know where you get them but I'm assuming the government send you an address of a "dealer" when you hit 65ish.

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Hmmmmm I think by 2040 I'll probably have one of those electric car doohickey things, probably the burgundy one that tops out at 5mph as I'll be knocking on 70 by then and I'm already falling to bits.

I can't wait to get one but my main life goal is to get a tartan trolley basket doofer, I don't know where you get them but I'm assuming the government send you an address of a "dealer" when you hit 65ish.

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I've just swapped from an automatic 2.0L Scirocco R-Line with Diesel and DSG gearbox to a 1.4 Golf SE Nav which is petrol and manual. Slightly less BHP but generally for my useage, more economical in terms of I don't really do long journeys anymore so petrol is the way for me to go. Absolutely love my new car, and quite nice to actually drive, rather than just have an oversized go-kart